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liked the new teacher, and she would talk to her parents again about taking his psychology course. Then she suddenly stopped, and there on the sidewalk of Main Street, Marilyn Orane crossed herself, and silently repeated a prayer of thanks to the Sorrowful Mother for bringing Mr. Balsam to Neilsville. Then she opened her eyes and continued walking. Across the street, Judy Nelson watched her from the drugstore window, and smiled.
       The bell rang at precisely seven-thirty. Peter Balsam opened the door to find Margo Henderson smiling at him with a brightness that was almost too cheerful Heheld the door for her to come in, and closed it firmly behind her. As the door clicked shut, the smile faded slightly, and she laughed nervously.
    “I feel like a wicked woman,” she said, shrugging off the light jacket she had thrown over her shoulders and glancing quickly around the apartment “Do you happen to have a spare drink around here?”
    “Scotch or bourbon?” Peter said, wondering if he should offer her wine instead, and wishing he’d thought of a clever retort.
    “Scotch, with about ten splashes of water.” She gave the room a more careful inspection while Peter mixed two identically weak highballs. “I like this,” she declared as she took one of the glasses from him. “Books and plants—the two things I can’t live without” She tasted the drink. “And you make perfect drinks, toa Maybe we should get married.”
    Peter choked on the mouthful of scotch-and-water he had been about to swallow, then realized she had been kidding. As his face reddened, Margo laughed again.
    Tm sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to kill you off.” She patted him on the back until his coughing subsided. He sank to the couch and looked at her. And then, when he saw the twinkle in her eye, he suddenly began laughing.
    “I am
so
glad to see you,” he declared. “You haven’t any idea.” Then he looked at her quizzically. “What did you mean, you feel like a wicked woman?”
    “This is the first time in my life I’ve ever asked a man for a date. Now, maybe you have women calling you all the time, but for me this is a new and daring experience. In fact; I’d give odds such a thing has never been done in Neilsville before.”
    “Well, “I’m glad you called,” Peter said. “If I sounded a little strained earlier, it was just out of surprise thatthe phone rang at all. I’d been staring at it, feeling very plugged into the world, when I realized nobody in town was likely to call. And then it rang, and here you are. Where are we going for dinner?”
    Tm not sure,” Margo said, suddenly pensive. “I’d thought about Clyde’s, where the food is good and the music isn’t too offensive, but then it occurred to me that it might be the better part of valor to go out of town.”
    “Out of town?” Peter repeated blankly.
    Margo nodded. “Maybe I’m being paranoid, but considering you’re brand new in town, and teaching at St. Francis Xavier, and I’m divorced, and … well, all things considered, I think we might do better to go somewhere where neither one of us will be recognized. If you aren’t starving, I thought we might drive over to Moses Lake. It’s forty minutes away, but I know a good Italian place there.”
    Balsam started to protest, but then he remembered the frown on Leona Anderson’s face when he had accompanied Margo off the train, and the remarks Monsignor Vernon had made about the “formality” of Neilsville. “Formality,” he thought, was the wrong word. He was getting the distinct impression that Neilsville was downright narrow-minded.
    “Fine,” he agreed, finishing his drink. Then he smiled at Margo mischievously. “Do you want to meet me around the corner, or shall we risk walking out to your car together?”
    “Not to worry,” Margo said sheepishly. “I parked in the alley.”
       The restaurant hunched shabbily in the middle of an asphalt parking lot, lit garishly by a sign